Discover your school's Tree Equity Score

Does your school sit within a leafy haven or are you yearning for more greenery?

Trees help us all. They clean our air, cool our cities, fight climate change and boost our health. But not everyone has fair access to trees and all the benefits they offer.

In this challenge, you’ll learn about tree equity and discover your school’s Tree Equity Score. You can then take action to improve tree cover in your local area and celebrate the trees around you.

By completing this challenge, you'll earn two points on the Green Tree Schools Award.

What is tree equity?

Tree equity is when everyone has equitable access to the benefits of trees.

While some communities enjoy plenty of leafy, green spaces, others lack vital trees and their associated benefits. Often, people who would benefit most from trees live in areas with less of them.

To achieve tree equity, we need to protect existing trees and plant more trees in the areas that need them most.

Class discussion

• Ask your pupils to name some benefits of trees and talk about them in detail. You could deliver an assembly to explore these benefits and encourage discussion – we recommend The Man Who Planted Trees for KS2, or The Power of Trees for KS3. 
• Explore the difference between equity and equality.
• Discuss climate justice and how climate change affects people and places differently. Can your pupils think of any examples?

What is a Tree Equity Score?

We’ve partnered with American Forests to bring Tree Equity Score to the UK. Scores are marked from 0 to 100 and the lower the number, the greater the need for trees. A score of 100 means tree equity has been achieved.

Tree Equity Scores are important because they help us see which areas have the most urgent need for more trees.

Find your Tree Equity Score

Use our interactive tool to discover the score for your area:

1. Visit the UK Tree Equity Score website.
2. Search for your location or find it on the map.
3. Click or tap on your area to see your score. You’ll also see the tree canopy cover and canopy cover goal.

How does your school’s location compare to other areas in your community?

You can investigate further by turning on different layers in the map to explore in more detail.

What if my area doesn't have a score?

The tool is focused on urban areas and provides Tree Equity Scores for over 30,000 neighbourhoods in the UK. But tree equity is important for everyone and if your area doesn't have a score, you can still get involved:

• Use the closest score to your area.
• Twin with a local school that does have a score and work with them on the actions below.
• Conduct your own research to see how people in your school community feel about local tree cover. Are there enough trees? Would you like to see more trees? Can you see three trees from your window? Estimate the score for your area – do you think it's high or low?

How to boost your score

If your score is less than 100, you can take action to work towards tree equity.

• Order a free tree pack to plant in your school grounds if you have space.
• Partner with a community group or local landowner to plant a free tree pack on their land if you don’t have space in your own grounds.
• Work on our campaigning challenge – tell local decision makers that trees are vital and urge them to provide more in your neighbourhood.

Celebrate local trees

Many of our Green Tree Schools Award challenges are about appreciating the trees around us. From tree dressing to hosting a tree party, we've got lots of ideas to help you celebrate the amazing trees in your neighbourhood.

Explore our tree-themed challenges:

How to claim your points

This challenge is worth two points on our award. To claim them, tell us your Tree Equity Score (or how you’ve assessed tree coverage in your local area) and what you’ve done to celebrate or address this. For example, “Our Tree Equity Score is 40 and we’ve ordered a free tree pack to plant more trees for our community.”.

Email your evidence to learning@woodlandtrust.org.uk with the subject line 'Tree Equity Score challenge'. Include any photos, videos or stories related to the challenge.

We’ll add your points to your account after we’ve received your evidence (usually within two weeks).

How we use quotes and photos

We like to use comments and photos from schools to inspire other teachers and young people about outdoor learning. With your permission, they could appear on our award materials, website, press releases and social media.

You can find out more about how we use and look after your personal information in our privacy policy.

Permissions

If you're happy for us to share your quotes and photos as outlined above, please include the following permission statements in your email:

• We confirm we have permission from the photographer to submit these photos and use them for the purposes stated.
• We confirm we have permission from pupils' parents/guardians to share their photos, comments and names and use them for the purposes stated.

If you'd rather we didn't share them, please include the following statement in your email:

• We would prefer that our photos and comments are not used for the purposes stated.